Freud believed that schizophrenia was caused by regression to an early mental state due to an inability to cope with unacceptable urges. Later psychodynamic theorists, like Sullivan, argued that schizophrenia results from a gradual withdrawal from relationships that begins with an anxious and hostile parent-child relationship in early childhood. This withdrawal continues in a cycle until early adulthood, when new social demands cause such extreme anxiety that the person disengages completely from relationships and reality.
3. According to Freud , schizophrenics are
people whose egos are not strong enough to
cope effectively with unacceptable id
impulses. Overwhelmed by anxiety , they
simply give up the fight and regress to the
early oral stage, a period in which there is as
yet no separation between ego and id and
therefore no struggle between the two. This
regression to an egoless phase accounts for
the schizophrenic’s break with reality , since it
is the ego that mediated between the self and
reality.
4. To this day, anxiety
motivated regression is
still the major theme of
psychodynamic writing
on schizophrenia.
5. A good example of the latter trend is the work of
Harry Stack Sullivan (1962), who devoted much of his
theoretical writing to schizophrenia. According to
Sullivan, the cause of the schizophrenic’s anxiety is
not id impulses but a damaging mother-child
relationship. To Sullivan and many other post-
Freudians, schizophrenia represents a gradual
withdrawal from other people. This process begins in
early childhood, with anxious and hostile interactions
between parent and child. Scared off from intimacy
with others, the child takes refuge in a private world of
fantasy. This initiates a vicious cycle : the more the
child withdraws, the less opportunity he or she has to
develop the trust, confidence, and skills necessary for
establishing close bonds with others, and the fewer
the bonds, the greater the anxiety.
6. The spiral continues until, in early adulthood,
the person is faced with a new and more
taxing set of social demands- work, marriage,
and so forth. In the face of these challenges,
the person becomes so swamped with anxiety
that he/she withdraws completely, closing
down those mental facilities (e.g.,
communication, perception, reasoning) that
are the bridge to the world of other people. It is
the final withdrawal that we call the
schizophrenic break, though according to
Psychodynamic writers, it is only the
culmination of a gradual disengagement from
human relationships.
